Jim Roche is an industry-recognized expert in creating and operating world-class sales teams. A 2005 American Business Award finalist for Best Sales Executive, he has held a variety of sales roles ranging from “carrying a bag" and overseeing large and highly decentralized sales teams, to creating and implementing sales automation systems training, and managing worldwide sales operations organizations.

Much of his career was spent at META Group Inc., a leading technology research, consulting and advisory firm with operations in 35 countries. His most recent role at META Group, prior to its acquisition April 1, 2004 by Gartner Inc., included building and running worldwide sales operations centered on a highly successful implementation of the ValueSelling sales process. While turning over 35 percent of the sales and client services team, some of his results included growing revenue 16 percent (industry average 2 percent), decreasing pipelines by 50 percent while growing business backlog by more than 70 percent, increasing average deal size by more than 40 percent, and decreasing “time to effectiveness" for new hires from 8-12 months to 3-6 months.

Jim held several other positions during his tenure at META Group, where he started as an extremely successful field sales executive, managed various field sales teams, and managed a team of more than 25 telesales representatives. He also has extensive sales and management experience in retail operations including County TV & Appliance, the largest single-store home appliances and electronics retailer in Connecticut.

Jim attended the Cooper Union School of Engineering.